Last year, my wife and I moved from a neighborhood populated by families who relocated every five years or so to a neighborhood of older individuals most of whom have resided there for decades. Where on the previous street, it had become a game to learn even the first names of new people, no fewer than a dozen neighbors stopped by to greet us as we were moving in last August. How refreshing!
This past month, I hired a couple of workers to help me clean up the large yard we have and to trim some of the trees. After a couple of days, we ended up with more than twenty trash bags and bundle after bundle of branches. Knowing that there is a ten bag or bundle weekly limit on trash collection,
I thought I was faced with dragging ten bags a week out to the curb for the next month, leaving the remainder in a big pile in front of the house. But then an interesting thing happened. A neighbor stopped by on her way to work and said, "I don’t have a lot of trash this week, leave some of the bundles in front of my house." Then another one did the same thing. Then another. Then another. Before I knew it, I had disposed of all the cuttings.
In an age where we all talk about community, I wonder how many of us take the little actions that foster its creation. So go ahead, use a little subterfuge and help someone with their trash today. You’ll enjoy the shocked expression on their face.